Face the Music (29 page)

“He was going to bail without even telling you?”

“Apparently
.”

Chris blew out a breath and
traced little
lines up across
my back with his fingers
.
  The touch was nice.  Comforting.

“What happened next?”

“He wouldn’t even l
ook at me.  I was so confused, wondering w
hat, after all that time, could
have possibly changed
?”

“
Did he say anything
?”

You’re sucking the life right out of me.

I shook my head
, unwilling to say it
.  “It doesn’t matter.  It was my fault.
  I
let myself get too attached.  If only I…”

Chris sat upright and stiff.  “No.  You didn’t deserve that.  Whatever happened, whatever changed, he should have had the decency to talk to you about it.”

“Maybe.  But he was right to move on
. 
I take
on too much.  I’m too serious
.  Life.  Relationships.  I try to be more flippant, but it’s so hard.”

Chris looked like he wanted to laugh.  “Flippant?  Being serious is not a bad thing, it’s who you are.  Look at all your responsibilitie
s.  D
o you think you could handle everything being flippant?  Don’t try to be someone you’re not, Allie.  It’s a waste of effort.
  Trust me.
”

I smiled at his logic. 
“He called today to apologize.  He wants me to go see him, wants to try to pick things back up.  Can you believe it?”  I turned and looked at
Chris
.  His gaze was on the floor.

“What do you want?”
he asked gently.

The question hung in the air for a long minute. 
I knew I’d said too much, so I attempted to lighten the mood. 
“I want to go to the park,” I said, standing up.  I picked up my purse, hooked my sunglasses behind my ears, and looked out at the beginnings of a gorgeous day.  “Ready?”

Within minutes
,
we were on the road.  Traffic was surprisingly light
,
so it didn’t take long for us to get there. 

“I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid,” he said, looking around.

I said nothing.  Mom, Emily, Grams, and I used to go every year, but I hadn’t been back since Mom died.  My heart beat heavily against my chest, and I wondered if bringing him here was a bad idea.  So many memories.

He took my hand as we walked to the entrance. 
It felt nice, so I took it a step further and wrapped my arm around his.

Most of the animals were out.  A polar bear was sprawled out on a large rock, soaking up the
sun
.  Seals barked and splashed around their pool.  We watched the elephants get scrubbed and laughed when one of them sucked up a trunkful of water and
soaked
its caretaker. 

When we got to the monkey house, I paused, feeling sentimental, and stared through the glass wall at a family of chimpanzees.  A few were swinging on ropes, and a small group was huddled together in the corner, picking through each other’s fur. 

“We used to come here every Easter.”  I smiled at the memory.  “The zoo had a big celebration and hid eggs all over the park.  Emily and I would put on our new dresses and carry around our little baskets and hunt for them.  Then we’d go see the Easter Bunny and have a picture taken.”  I paused, but he didn’t say anything.  I could feel him watching me. 

“Mom loved the monkeys,” I continued.  “I remember hating this part of the zoo b
ecause she’d spend so much time
standing right here, just watching them.  I’d get so bored.
”  I laughed.  “
‘T
hey’re just a big, happy family,’ she’d
tell me
.  I
kind of
envy them now.”

After the zoo, we
strolled over to the North Avenue Beach.  Sailboats were scattered across the lake, and seagulls cried as they flew circles overhead.  “That’s Lake Michigan,” I said, pointing out to the clear blue water.  “Isn’t it pretty?”

“It sure is,” he whispered, though he wasn’t looking at the water. 

We walked a ways down the beach, and I led him to the Conservatory and showed him the famous
,
century-old
,
rubber tree.  “We took a field trip here when I was in elementary school,” I told him.  “I had a boyfriend named Zack.  While the teacher was telling us about this tree
,
we snuck over there,” I pointed to a corner, “and
hid behind a trashcan.
”  I smiled when Chris laughed.  “That was my first kiss.”

“
How romantic,” he said.  “
So what happened to Zack?” 

“I broke up with him.”

“Why?”

“Because Taylor asked me out.  He was the cutest boy in our class, and all the girls were in love with him.”

Chris held back a smirk.  “I see how you are.”

“You have no idea.”  I gave him a mischievous look.  “You hungry?  There’s a hot dog stand down the way.”  It was nearly two
,
and my stomach was starting to grumble.

“So
,
what do you think?”  I asked after we’d each gotten a foot-long.  I was curious to hear his opinion of the park.  He’d been rather quiet the entire day.

“It’s pretty good, but it’s hard to screw up a hot dog, isn’t it?”  He smiled and winked, knowing full well that he hadn’t answered my question.

Aft
er we finished
,
I l
ed him to our final destination,
the Nature Museum.  “This,” I explained as we stepped into the Butterfly Haven, “is one of my favorite places on Earth.”  Waterfalls flowed from overhead
,
and bright, fragrant blossoms grew around every corner.  Dozens of species of butterflies flew freely about the room.

Chris smiled as he took it in.  “This is
awesome
.”  He held up a hand as an iridescent blue-green butterfly landed on his finger. 

“Isn’t it?”  I leaned in to look.  “That’s a Ulysses Butterfly-
Papilio Ulysses
.  They’re native to Australia.”

“Papi…what?”

I giggled.  “Papilio is the Latin word for butterfly.”

“Pa-pi-li-o,” he repeated slowly.  “That’s kind of cool.”  He looked down at his new friend, who was happily perched on his chest.  “She must like me.” 

I giggled again.  “Actually, he likes your shir
t.  Males are attracted to blue
.” 

Chris laughed and looked down at his cerulean sweater.  “Oh.  Well, sorry to disappoint you, little fellow, but I don’t think it could ever work between us.”  As if it had understood, the butterfly flew away.  We watched it flutter off and land on a wall across the room. 

“So
,
why are butterflies okay, but spiders aren’t?  They’re all bugs.”

“Technically,
neither
spiders
nor butterflies are
bugs.  They all belong to the phylum Arthropoda, but spiders are arachnids
,
and butterflies are
insects
.  Two entirely different classifications.
”

“Wait, insects and bugs aren’t the same thing?”

I shook my head.  “All
bugs are insects, but not vice versa.
  Bug is a specific type of insect.
”

He laughed.  “
Wow!  You
really
know your stuff, don’t you?
”  He fixed me with a sultry gaze and lowered his voice.  “
Intelligence is sexy on a woman.
”

I thought my heart would
beat right out of my ribcage.

I
turned
to lean
against
t
he railing
, and watched the families stroll along the path
.  “I love this place.
  This will probably so
und crazy, but when I come here
I feel close to my mom.”

He folded his hands together and leaned next to me.  “No, not crazy, but can I ask why?”

“My m
om studied butterflies.  They were her passion.  She used to bring me here.”  I pointed to a bench by the south wall.  “We’d sit over there and talk like we were best friends.  I don’t know, I guess it was her way of spending quality time with me.”

“Why the fascination with butterflies?”

“They’re really quite amazing, if you think about it.  They start out as tiny little eggs, hatch and grow into fat caterpillars, surround themselves with a cocoon, and then are reborn, almost, as these beautiful creatures.”  I reached out and touched a small red butterfly perched on
the beam
.  “It’s silly, I know,” I said when he gave me a puzzled look. 

“No, no.  It’s not silly.  It’s almost like they get a new life, a fresh start as something different,” he said.

“Exactly!  I think that’s what they came to represent for Mom.  Life wasn’t easy for her.  She met my father while she was a freshman in college and got pregnant with me before finishing her first semester.  She didn’t talk about him
a lot, but from what I gathered
he didn’t exactly treat her well.  But
,
she was so determined to keep us together that she put up with him for over two years.

“He ran off when Mom
got
pregnant with Emily.  She went back to school to try and rebuild her life and got a job in a research lab.  She was trying to make a fresh start for herself.”  I frowned at the memory.  It had been a long time since I’d talked about Mom this way.

I peeked up at Chris
,
but was embarrassed when I caught him staring at me.  He turned his head.

“Papilio,” he said again.

I laughed.  “Do you know any sign language?  The sign for butterfly is this.”  I interlocked my thumbs and flapped my hands like wings.  “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

He grinned.  “Mariposa.”

“What?”

“The Spanish word for butterfly, Mariposa.”

I
thought back to the day
Chris and I had
first met.  It seemed like eons ago, but
,
in fact
, it
had only been a little over a month.

He must have seen me smile.  “What?”

I shook my head.  “Nothing.”

“No, not nothing.  Tell me!” he insisted
, turning to face me
.  “What are you thinking about?”